nekroman

Before I review this let me just make something abundantly clear. I'm biased towards this movie. I've been spellbound from it ever since it played in the theaters back in 1997. I've seen it well over 100 times and am an avid collector of everything Event Horizon.

Whew! OK, now onto the review. The title of this feature can be misleading. It has the exact same title as an HBO special that aired in 1997. However this is not that feature. The 1997 HBO special was about 25 minutes long with interviews with cast and crew and some clips not seen anywhere else, including this new feature.

But this new one, found on the Event Horizon special collector's edition is a real joy. As zamise outlined it previously it's made of a number of chapters, each with dizzying amounts of trivia and behind the scenes fun. Even die hards like me learned things from it.

While Paul W.S. Anderson continues to be hounded by dimwits, this is a great look into his greatest achievement and even those Anderson bashers are bound to find themselves entranced by this new DVD.

The translation of this early Bethmann work is Dance of the Pumpkinhead. Although the copy I saw was all in German I was able to get this story from it. A killer who wears a jack-o-lantern kills people, who come back to life as psychos to continue the murders. If that sounds stupid, you would be right. Although I consider myself a gorehound I found this movie to be a chore to endure. Nothing happens for the first forty minutes and when it does, it's pretty darn hokey. Bethmann must have bought a fog machine prior to making this film and it's pretty obviously. It's as if he wanted us to see "how cool" it was since most night scenes have wisps of fog shooting through them constantly. This is one you can easily pass on but for fans of bad German gore flicks I suppose you'll want to add this to you want list.

Only the very hardest viewers need apply to this indie. It is the absolute closest thing to genuine snuff you will ever see. Far more unsettling and realistic than the over hyped Guinea Pig series. Obviously without the use of a simple tripod August Underground assaults the senses from the first minute to the last. The movie comes off as something found stowed away in the recesses of a twisted serial killer's private collection of home videos because the basic plot is two college aged psychos tape their carnage. The acting is amazingly real, the effects are nightmarish. What makes it so realistic is the amateur way it comes off, ironically. With bad blips of home editing, camera shots up in the air and unsteady and the absence of any opening credits it's hard to believe what you are seeing is a full fledged movie. The camera person never makes an appearance but his sick laughing at his victims along with childish banter with the one killer we do see makes this feel like a homemade episode of Jackass that enters the zone of murder.

This is not a movie that most people would be able to handle. It takes a strong stomach and a numbed mind for this truly is one of the most extreme and violent pieces ever to make it to video.